[RECESS]

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States

Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany's Ambassador to the United States since July 31, 2001, was born in 1946 near Stuttgart in southern Germany and joined the German Foreign Service in 1975 with German law degree and a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston.

He worked at the UN in New York and was posted to Washington, D.C., and to Paris. In Bonn, he served as special assistant to Foreign Ministers Genscher and Kinkel. From 1993 to 1998, Ambassador Ischinger served in various senior positions in the German Foreign Ministry where he led the German delegations to a number of international negotiating processes, including the Bosnia Peace Talks at Dayton, Ohio, the negotiations concerning the NATO-Russia Founding Act, as well as the negotiations on NATO enlargement and on the Kosovo crisis.

From 1998 to 2001, Ambassador Ischinger served as State Secretary, the highest civil service post, in the German Foreign Office.

Ambassador Ischinger has published widely on foreign policy, security and arms control policy as well as on European and transatlantic issues.

He serves on several non-profit boards, including the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the East-West Institute in New York, the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft, Frankfurt, the Council on Public Policy, the AFS Germany (American Field Service) and the YFU Stiftungsrat (Youth for Understanding). He is also Chairman of the Ambassadors Advisory Board of the Executive Council on Diplomacy in Washington, D.C.

Wolfgang Ischinger is married and has three children. He is a certified professional ski instructor and holds a private pilot’s license.